DARTMOUTH — Officials at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth said they are fully cooperating with a probe by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights over its recent handlings of reported on-campus sexual violence.

A couple of weeks ago, UMass Dartmouth became one of the latest campuses to be added to a growing list colleges and universities under scrutiny by the Office of Civil Rights, which has been investigating campuses through the federal Title IX statute on whether they’ve mishandled sexual violence reports.

Brown University in Providence was also added to the list, which was originally announced in May and now consists of 72 colleges and universities. Eight of those 72 campuses are located in Massachusetts; one in Rhode Island.

According to the latest list, updated July 30, the investigation of UMass Dartmouth opened on July 16.

UMass Dartmouth officials said they’re not taking the investigation lightly and have described the process to date as a fact-finding effort, with the Office of Civil Rights so far requesting information that doesn’t appear to look at a single incident.

“It’s an important issue. We’re going to do what we need to do to comply with the request,” said David Milstone, UMass Dartmouth’s vice chancellor for student affairs. “We’re obviously going to do our best to strengthen our program. For a long time, we have had this as a priority.”

Milstone said the Office of Civil Rights has not shared any details and has asked about “our process.”

The Office of Civil Rights hasn’t released any details on the investigation. Nor will it until after its investigation is complete and only after the information is requested, explained spokesman Jim Bradshaw, who was quoting the department’s May 1 press release on the investigations.

“The Department will not disclose any case-specific facts or details about the institutions under investigation,” Jim Bradshaw wrote. He added that those investigations were opened because of complaints received by the Office of Civil Rights or were initiated by the office “as compliance reviews.”

Federal officials have said previously that though the schools are being investigated, they won’t necessarily be found guilty of wrongdoing. And even those institutions found to have violated Title IX do not necessarily face fines or risk losing federal funding.

The goal is to resolve concerns, whether that means entering “into a resolution agreement to address compliance concerns at a particular campus” or finding “insufficient evidence of a Title IX violation.”

“The university is confident that it responds to all reports of sexual assault and harassment in a thorough, sensitive and professional manner,” UMass Dartmouth spokesman John Hoey said in a statement.

“Over the past several years, we have been proactive in enhancing our response to Title IX issues, and will approach this inquiry as an opportunity to further strengthen our policies and practices,” Hoey said.

Milstone said UMass Dartmouth averages about four reported cases each year and said that, “based on what we know about sexual violence,” there is a discrepancy between the number of incidents of sexual violence that actually happen on campuses versus those that ultimately get reported.

“Any time there is a complaint of a serious incident, we have two responsibilities. One is to ensure safety of victim. The other is to make sure the community has a separation from the alleged perpetrator in this case,” Milstone said.

That may be accomplished through a temporary suspension, although the circumstances may vary with each individual case.

“It’s usually a very short amount of time. We want to be careful to support both the victim and the alleged perpetrator because we don’t know what’s true yet," Milstone said. "We want to assume accuracy in what the victim is saying but then want to assume the perpetrator is not responsible.”

Handling reports is a collaborative effort between student affairs, health services and campus police. The university also has a designated Title IX coordinator and a victims advocate.

Milstone said educating new students has been part of the approach to combating sexual violence. During orientation, new UMass Dartmouth students now learn about bystander intervention at the same time that they learn about campus life and how to register for courses. The first conversation about sexual violence occurs during orientation for new students. The approach aims to prevent incidents instead of having to address them once they've occurred.

“It doesn’t help anybody to have their first discussion while going in front of conduct board,” Milstone said.

In most cases, including at UMass Dartmouth, the names of the alleged assailants and victims have not been made public.

But in the case of the alleged incident reported at Brown, both the alleged victim and perpetrator have publicly identified themselves via other news outlets.

Officials at Brown also indicated the university’s intent to “cooperate fully during this review.”

“Our policy is not to discuss individual cases or details of ongoing reviews,” reads a statement posted on Brown’s website July 18. “We continue to work to ensure that we adhere to all best practices under Title IX, and have communicated the establishment of a task force charged with recommending improvements to our procedures."